AES and The Audiophile Press

[FrantzM]

Hi

I want to present my congratulations to Positive Feedback Online for their coverage of the AES 2010 conference.

Audiophiles publications, audiophiles in general have a dim view of the Audio Engineering Society. They see it as an evil, everything-sound-the-same entity whose sole purpose is to shoot down audiophiles myths ...err... observations...
Not so with this very, very interesting coverage of the AES

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue58/aes.htm

Congrats Positive Feedback!

For the record .. I do not care much about most articles in this very, very audiophile oriented magazine. This one however make me want to look more into it. I hope I am not thoroughly disappointed ...

 

[Bruce B]

Cool article.... Thanks!

 

[amirm]

Wow, what detailed coverage! While I find at least half the talks at AES incredibly boring and the exhibits heavily biased toward recording engineers, there is a ton of valuable information one can learn from the conference.

I was fascinated by this bit in the report:

"Probably the most interesting paper I have seen in years was "Distortions in Audio Op-Amps and Their Effect on Listener Perception of Character and Quality" by Robert-Eric Gaskell, Peter E. Gaskell, and George Massenburg. In this test, a number of similar op-amps were tested in a two-stage moderate gain circuit, and in a blind listening test, listeners were able to tell the difference between them. Good correlation existed between the subjective preferences and the distortion spectra, but in a complex way that actually favored higher distortion op-amps. Well worth checking out for anyone interested in listening tests. Preprint 8503."


A quick google did not find any online copies of it. Seems like a fascinating report.

 

[microstrip]

Wow, what detailed coverage! While I find at least half the talks at AES incredibly boring and the exhibits heavily biased toward recording engineers, there is a ton of valuable information one can learn from the conference.

I was fascinated by this bit in the report:
(...) A quick google did not find any online copies of it. Seems like a fascinating report.

Amir,

A copy will cost non AES members usd 20 - I would not mind paying the member fee (usd 5) for the paper, but usd 20 for a paper that I will use only for an hobby seems too expensive and risky.

Considering that the last author is a well know senior sound engineer ( George Massenburg of GML) only increases my interest for the paper...

It is a frequent problem for audio amateurs - most University or public libraries do not have access to AES publications and buying the papers, even for non profit use is too expensive.

 

[amirm]

I don't like AES policy here. Companies are donating these papers free of charge to them. For them to turn around and charge for them in the age of electronic distribution is not right. I could understand the printing fees in the old days but not in the new era. Kudos to the authors who provide copies themselves.. Wish more did that.

Someone said they wrote to authors of papers in the past and they would always provide a free copy. Wonder if we can find their contact info as this paper would surely be nice given the fact that it caters to both points of view: blind testing and differences being heard.

 

[microstrip]

Once you publish something in AES (or many other publishing companies) you are not supposed to send free copies to friends or other people , as most probably you have agreed to transfer the copyright of the paper to the publisher, who becomes the owner and exclusive distributor of the paper. In old days I remember that in some publications we were offered a few copies in paper - and could buy some more at a reduced fee - to send to friends or interested people free of charge.

Although many authors will happily send you a copy, the last thing they will want is seeing it acknowledged in a public forum. These people are from the McGill University, Canada.

 

[amirm]

Once you publish something in AES (or many other publishing companies) you are not supposed to send free copies to friends or other people , as most probably you have agreed to transfer the copyright of the paper to the publisher, who becomes the owner and exclusive distributor of the paper. In old days I remember that in some publications we were offered a few copies in paper - and could buy some more at a reduced fee - to send to friends or interested people free of charge.

Although many authors will happily send you a copy, the last thing they will want is seeing it acknowledged in a public forum. These people are from the McGill University, Canada.

AES guidelines are muddy in this regard:

"The standard AES paper cover is copyrighted by the Audio Engineering Society and may not be reproduced without permission.
Copyright to the content (but not the AES format) of an AES paper remains with its author. However, when submitting a paper for presentation at an AES convention, an author agrees that the AES Journal will have the first opportunity to consider it for publication. If it is accepted for publication in the Journal, authors will be asked to execute a transfer of copyright agreement."

My read of it is that the mere fact of presenting the paper at the conference does not trigger the transfer. And any rate, I suspect hardly anyone signs the secondary transfer of copyright or else, they would know if they had and would no longer give copies.

 

[amirm]

Re-reading it, it seems that only in the case of journal papers that is the case. Papers like we are talking about are conference papers so the author retains fully copyright and ownership.